The Problem of Page and Stage in Russian and British Productions of Shakespeare

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Citation for published version Radosavljevic, Duška (2014) The Problem of Page and Stage in Russian and British Productions of Shakespeare. Arts Studies Quarterly (2). ISSN 0032-9371.

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2/2014 , ART STUDIES QUARTERLY 2 – ISSN 0032-9371

47-a 2014

. ...... 3 duška Radosavljević. The Problem of Page and Stage in russian and British Productions of Shakespeare ...... 12 . ...... 18 . ...... 23 . ...... 31 -. „ ” ...... 36 . O ...... 40 . ! 90- ...... 48

. – „ ” „ „” ...... 57 . – ...... 58 . . „ 1989 ” ...... 59 . „ 1878-1944” ...... 60

...... 62

CONTeNTS Kamelia nikolova. Shakespeare in Bulgarian Theatre Space Today ...... 3 . „ ” ...... 12 evgenia Pancheva. The Taming of the audience ...... 18 sava dragunchev. Stages to achieve a Shakespearean Character ...... 23 nadezhda marinchevska. Shakespeare in an animated stippled line ...... 31 ingeborg Bratoeva-daraktchieva. Franco Zefirelli’s „romeo and Juliet” as a crossover ilm model ...... 36 nenko atanasov. Shrewish labours of the untamed Bulgarian theatre posters ...... 40 mariana lazarova. Shakespeare forever! adaptation as re-contextualization in British cinema of the 90s of the 20th century ...... 48

reVIeWS nadezhda marinchevska. Bulgarian cinema - from „Kalin the eagle” to „mission London”...... 57 nikolay Yordanov. For the drama and the resistance – a recent critical view ...... 58 anna topaldzhikova. For a productive inluence. „Bulgarian theatre after 1989 and new British drama”...... 59 milena Georgieva. For angela Daneva’s book „Bulgarians in Italian academies of Fine arts 1878-1944” ...... 60

SummarIeS ...... 62 2/2014

: . .. , . - ( ), . (), . - , . (), . - , . . , . .. , . - , . .. (. ), . .. , . .. . : , „ “ . „“ 21, C 1000. . 944 24 14, +359 2 943 30 92 e-mail: [email protected]

. , . .

[email protected].

editorial Board: Prof. aLeXaNDer YaNaKIeV, DSc; assoc. Prof. BISSerKa PeNKOVa, PhD (editor in Chief); Prof. CHaVDar POPOV, DSc; assoc. Prof. DIaNa GerGOVa, PhD; Corr. mem. eLKa BaKaLOVa; acad. GOJKO SuBOTIC (Serbia); assoc. Prof. INGeBOrG BraTOeVa, PhD; Prof. IVaNKa GerGOVa, DSc; Prof. KameLIa NIKOLOVa, DSc (Dep. editor in Chief); Prof. rOmeO POPILIeV, DSc; assoc. Prof. VIOLeTa VaSILCHINa, PhD; Prof. VLaDImIr PeTruKHIN (russia)

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Compiled by Kamelia Nikolova Clerical secretary: Tsveta Kuneva Designed by maya Lacheva Photo editor: Ivan Vanev Translated by Kamelia Nikolova, milena Lilova

I „” , . / , „”, ( 3 , 2014, „ ” - „” 2014-2016) First cover „Hamlet“ by William Shakespeare, directed by Dominic Dromgoole/Bill Buckhurst, ‚Shakespere‘s Globe Theatre, London, uK (In Bulgaria - 3 June, 2014, ITF „Varna Summer“ - Globe to Globe 2014-2016)

IV , 1995 . Back cover Nikolay mladenov, 1995 2/2014 THE PROBLEM OF PAGE AND STAGE IN RUSSIAN AND BRITISH PRODUCTIONS OF SHAKESPEARE* Duška radosavljević, university of Kent, united Kingdom

An interesting event, which brought the English Shakespear- them must be understood as an epistemological rather than ean and Russian Stanislavskian tradition together, took place a mechanical endeavour. This notion of translation presup- in September 2010 in Stratford-upon-Avon. Organized by poses that not only the verbal content is rendered from one Paul Allain (Professor of Theatre and Performance, Univer- idiom to another, but also its contextual meaning. sity of Kent) and Struan Leslie (Head of Movement, RSC), Philosopher Levi R. Bryant offers a very useful interpreta- the event was a culmination of a two-year research project tion of Bruno Latour’s idea of translation which seems par- between the University of Kent and the Moscow Art Theatre ticularly suitable here: (MHAT) School entitled ‘Tradition and Innovation’. Both „Think about photosynthesis. Here we have photons of in the run-up to the ‘In the Body’ Symposium, and in the sunlight, the leaf and its photosynthetic cells, and the sugar course of the weekend during which it took place, one could produces [sic.]. The leaf ‘translates’ the photons of sunlight observe an interesting phenomenon. There was a mutual and produces something new: the complex sugars. There is fascination between the British and the Russians. The Brit- no resemblance or identity between the photons of light and ish were often greatly impressed by the rigour, intensity and these complex sugars. Rather that sunlight becomes some- virtuosity with which the actor training is taught at MHAT1. thing new in passing through the medium of the photosyn- The Russians, on the other hand, are intrigued by the appar- thetic cells”3. ent variety of working practices that exists in England, such Given this conception of translation as photosynthesis – as as devising, immersive or site-speciic theatre. But both of a process which yields ‘something new’ – we can perhaps these sets of experiences have their limit and their lip-side begin to conceive of the relationship between text and per- too. The russians are quickly disappointed when they ind formance as translational – or, more precisely, transforma- that the theatre they see is of apparently indeterminate genre, tional. In considering the process of staging a play, we may below a standard they expected, or so verbal that it does not need to resort to the notions of director’s theatre which, due sustain their attention. Conversely, the British are worried by to distinct cultural genealogies, will have different manifes- what they perceive to be a certain dogmatism that underlies tations in continental Europe as opposed to the anglophone Russian performer training as there is little accommodation world. Needless to say, those traditions must be understood of personal ability of the students in it. paradigmatically, in relation to their own contexts, before In Stratford, the British participants were dazzled and thor- they can be appropriately related to each other. Despite liv- oughly exhausted by a sprightly, charismatic septuagenar- ing in an age of globalization, the MHAT/RSC encounter ian, Andrei Droznin, an engineer-turned-acting coach who mentioned above has highlighted that the pre-1989 con- teaches his extremely dynamic movement classes in a suit ception of the east/West binary is still at times dificult to and tie2. He was accompanied by his former students, MHAT overcome. The Slovenian philosopher rastko mocˇnik has movement teachers Slava Rybakov and Natalia Fedorova. noted that in comparison with the East, the West sees itself However, when experiencing British movement workshops, as ‘timeless, canonic, general, it is a non-space, since it is a often designed to provoke an individual response from the norm, a measure against which the peripheral, the provin- participants, the Russians found this too basic and amateur. cial is to be measured’ (quoted in Buden 2010: 6). As an The project examining tradition and innovation therefore re- individual in between the East and the West – faced with vealed an entrenchment of the respective positions of both pertinent examples of theatre-making within both of those sides. In my experience – and because I could intuit the rea- contexts – I reserve the right of recourse to the reversed sons for the impasse between them, having witnessed similar perspective too. encounters between Eastern and Western Europeans – this It certainly appears that we entered the twenty-irst century seemed like a problem of cultural translatability and transla- prepared for a compromise in relation to the dichotomies tion. I was reminded of an anecdote I was once told about the of text and performance or page and stage – the latter of irst experiment in computer translation conducted between which has, particularly in that form of words, concerned American and Soviet scientists. The format was to feed a those who deal with the work of Shakespeare. The ield of phrase in English into the machine, have it translated into Performance Studies contributed to a considerable extent Russian, and then, as a means of testing accuracy, feed the towards what Erika Fischer-Lichte has called a ‘reversal Russian translation back and have it translated into English. of hierarchy between text and performance’ (2001). The The original phrase was ‘out of sight, out of mind’. It came fact that this reversal more recently led to a backlash from back as ‘the invisible lunatic’. literary scholars has been noted by W.B. Worthen (2011). No successful act of translation can ever be literal. But could However, there have also been some attempts at reaching a we view the relationship between text and performance by truce. Weimann and Bruster, for example, have proposed in means of translation? Shakespeare’s theatre a ‘dramaturgy of „bifold authority” This is not to propose a return to a linguistic or semiotic which, bridging and yet exploiting the gap between lan- framework for analysing performance. My intention rather guage and performance, does not permit an order of „hier- is to underline the notion of a categorical difference between archy” between them’ (2008: 14). distinct cultures as well as the paradigms of text and per- One useful aspect of a transformation model of the page to formance, whereby the process of any ‘translation’ between stage translation is that a relationship of ‘hierarchy’ between 12 2/2014 two distinct languages is not really tenable. Andrew James Butusov made the decision to direct the play in conjunction Hartley touches on this when he claims that ‘the difference with being able to cast Konstantin Raikin in the lead. In pre- between page and stage is one of kind, not degree’ (2005: 4). paring for this piece, Butusov knew that childhood was go- In his rather pragmatic project to provide a practice and the- ing to be an important theme, especially as he was working ory guide for a Shakespearean dramaturg, Hartley addresses with Raikin, who had grown up in the shadow of a famous the problem head on, with typical dramaturgical clarity – and father and was therefore forced to prove himself on his own in a rather conclusive manner: terms as an actor: „To put the play on stage is to transform it, to draw on fun- „He had a childhood which was by all means extraordinary. damentally different means of signiication [...]. Theatre is And I knew that there would be a painful spot in there some- not a conduit for text, a telephone through which the textual where. Looking at the play itself, it could also be argued that essence emerges at the other end basically the same as it was the problem of Richard can be traced to his own childhood, when it went in, it is a wormhole, a rift in the space–time to his illness and his personal view of himself within the continuum through which one is transported to a radically world. And this became a kind of engine for the production” different, strange, and – hopefully – wonderful universe. The (in radosavljević 2013: 58). text is not the production ‘in potential’, it does not predict or The motif of the snow is reminiscent of Christmas-time and even direct the performance, and it cannot somehow contain a particular ritual which all Russians know and remember or restrict the number of ‘correct’ stagings of the play [...]. from their childhood: the festive custom of being put on a In short, the production does not move from page to stage. chair and asked to recite a poem. For a child it is often a ‘mo- A play (text) and a production are fundamentally different ment of sickness’ which leads to the horror of forgetting your things, and while they are interconnected, the former does words: ‘And then of course what this leads to is a desire to not dictate or originate the latter” (2005: 42). become an actor or a director in order to resolve this complex An approach to text: Yury Butusov’s Richard III caused by a bad childhood memory’5. Directed in 2004 by Yuri Butusov at the Satirikon theatre This evokes Pavis’s notion of the mise-en-scène ‘provid[ing] in Moscow, ‘this comic-book version of the bloody Shake- the dramatic text with a situation that will give meaning to spearean tragedy’4 was picked by The Moscow Times critic the statements of the text’ (1992: 29). However, the method- John Freedman as one of the 15 most memorable produc- ology of making the piece (as well as the acting style adopt- tions of the last decade. The lead is played by Konstantin ed) can be seen as still being rooted in the Stanislavskian Raikin, who also runs the Satirikon (previously run by his tradition. father, the legendary comedian actor Arkady Raikin). The visual world of the production was derived from Butu- Angular, mostly uplit and extraordinarily dynamic, Butusov’s sov’s reading of Shakespeare through the prism of the Thea- production is a full-length rendition of Shakespeare’s play, in tre of the Absurd.6 Shakespeare’s interest in the paradoxes of the nineteenth-century translation by Gregory Ben and Alek- human nature prompted this approach – the scene between sandr Druzhinin, and presented here as a ‘tragi-farce’ in the Richard and Anne, for example, is seen by Butusov as par- key of an illustrated-bedtime-story. A bed – or a slight distor- ticularly exemplary of the absurd. Shakespeare’s own incon- tion of it – is a prominent part of Aleksandr Shishkin’s set, sistencies in his treatment of time and space provided further and Richard’s famous wooing attempts tend to literally unfold justiication; while Butusov’s prior engagement with Beckett from a graveyard into this horizontal throne. In addition, the inspired a metaphorical use of space: whole stage is covered in white sheets of changing textures. „In my view, the space in the Theatre of the Absurd is the Often featuring two-dimensional cut-outs of animals, furni- internal space of human psychology. My understanding of ture which towers over the protagonists and a musical accom- this notion began with my irst production,Waiting for Go- paniment which mixes cabaret, bossanova and a playing-den dot. You completely lose a sense of reality and go inside. brass-orchestra, the production also at times evokes German That’s what helped me to create the space for Richard III Expressionism and Ionesco. It is no surprise that Butusov’s looking so strange. It is linked to the play, but not literally” greatest hits, which propelled him to international fame in the (in radosavljević 2013: 61). early stages of his career, include a production of Waiting for Njal Mjøs has an interesting take on the visual aspect of Bu- Godot, Woyzeck and Ionesco’s Macbett. tusov’s Shakespeare productions, contained in an ongoing There are memorably poignant moments in the show too. partnership with the designer Aleksandr Shishkin: Clarence is killed as glasses of red wine are lung onto his„A Butusov/Shishkin production resembles a kind of theatri- white nightshirt. Margaret’s curse is delivered in a snow- cal neo-primitivism; without any post-modernist irony they storm as she stands on top of a giant kitchen table. The snow- play with the ‘primitive’ conditions of the stage, the primal, storm motif is repeated during Richard’s dream in the second ordinary elements of the theatre”7. half, and his speech is delivered like a nursery rhyme. On the Although Mjøs’s comment is not intended in a derogatory battleield he is haunted by the dead princes, who are having way, this perspective evokes the customary Western position a pillow-ight just like they did moments before their death. of cultural superiority in relation to the East, as proposed The frolicking brothers are also given the very last ‘word’ in by močnik and discussed earlier. This gap is conceptual- the show – chasing each other around Richard’s dead body ized further by Boris Buden, inspired by Habermas, as an as it gets bound up in the same silky sheets which had irst instance of ‘belated Modernism’ (Buden 2010: 6), although, seen the deaths of his victims – thus somehow appearing to whatever the label, the difference in cultural attitude is clear- restore divine justice. ly marked by different epistemological genealogies between In an interview he gave me, Butusov confessed that even Eastern and Western Europe throughout the latter half of the though the text is an important departure point for him, so is twentieth century. the actors’ and his own artistic impulse: At the turn of the 1990s, Patrice Pavis very effectively en- „When I make a piece of theatre I am telling a story about capsulated the position of a Western theatre-maker and audi- the actor or about myself, not a story about the play” (in ence member in terms of relativism, made even more acute radosavljević 2013: 58). by the end of Marxism as a tenable ideology: 13 2/2014

„Relativism is particularly evident in what has been called Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko – the Moscow Art Thea- the postmodern mise en scène of the classics: the rejection tre School. But it is an elitism based on merit rather than of any centralizing and committed reading, the leveling of birthright. We were told by one of the teachers that some 500 codes, the undoing of discursive hierarchies, the rejection of students a day audition at the school at certain times, and a separation between ‘high’ culture and mass culture are all only about 20 make it through the inal round. although this symptoms of the relativization of points of view. We are no is not so different from what occurs in some Western drama longer encumbered with the scruples of a Marx, who sees schools, the key distinction is that the Russian students are in classical (for example, Greek) art a high culture admit- all subsidized by the state, and in some cases by the school tedly distorted by class, but above all a potential universal- too. The director of the MHAT, Anatoly Smeliansky, also ity, which ought to be preserved. At the moment, the split told us that they expect about a quarter of each acting class between tried and tested classical values and modern values to drop out by the inal year, explaining that ‘this is not for to be tested no longer exists; we no longer believe in the everyone’. This sort of elitism was once fully sanctioned by geographical, temporal or thematic universality of the clas- the communist system(s) which guaranteed equality of op- sics” (1992: 14). portunity by virtue of the education system which was free Nevertheless, the ‘peripheral’ and ‘provincial’ East, rendered and standardized on a national level. In also guaranteeing a as such by the ‘timeless’ and ‘general’ West (mocˇnik in limited number of secure jobs for artists, the system had to Buden 2010), still manifests a desire to be seen as ‘univer- regulate the number of students completing the training. This sal’, as illustrated in the following quote of Lev Dodin from established a kind of cultural hegemony that was dificult to an interview published in 2010: challenge. The audiences, on their part, were mostly satis- „[E]very time we perform in another new place, we are ied to think of theatre people as possessed of a special talent convinced yet again that people cry in the same places and which was to be admired from the safety of their seats. At- people laugh in mostly the same places all over the world. tempts at collectively devised, or non-dramatic theatre could [...] All the legends about national mentalities get destroyed therefore only happen outside of the institutionalized subsi- when we go on stage. When it pertains not to the form, but dized sector of a communist country – or, as in the case of the essence, we’re all alike” (Dodin in Delgado and Rebel- the celebrated Russian troupe Derevo for example, outside lato 2010: 73). of the country. It is crucial to note that postmodernism – with the ‘level- Another approach to text: Shakespeare and the RSC ling of codes’, ‘undoing of hierarchies’ and ‘relativization community of views’ – never took place in the countries of the former When the octogenarian Cicely Berry walks into a rehearsal Eastern Bloc in the same way or at the same time as it did in room, whether it is to work with a group of actors, prisoners the West. This is not to say that the West has come further in or schoolteachers, it is not long before the word ‘fuck’ makes its understanding of culture and the human condition, or that it into one of her softly spoken elaborations on Shakespeare’s it should have the right to judge the East from a position of meaning. She relishes all types of verbal expression in equal democratic superiority – but it is necessary to acknowledge measure, but her workshops are always physically active from irst and foremost that we are faced with a matter of distinct start to inish. You will ind yourself kicking objects on the historical genealogies. An attempt at comparison could bring loor, jumping on and off chairs and being jostled as you speak about speculation as to whether or not the undoing of the verse in iambic pentameter. And in the end you will emerge types of hierarchies prevalent in the West (class, gender etc.) inspired and ever so slightly elevated, whoever you are. was as urgent and relevant in the communist East where the In 1969 Berry was invited by Trevor Nunn, the then Artistic political and social structure was, at least notionally, latter Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, to join as its than it was in the West. However, the difference, once again, in-house voice coach – a position until then unprecedented must be seen as categorical, and beyond direct comparison. in British theatre. This also makes her probably the longest- For Dodin, therefore, the desire to have universal appeal can- serving member of the RSC, even though she has in recent not be seen as imperialist, as it might be in the case of a years combined her work for the company with working out- Western theatre-maker; rather it must be understood within side of Stratford, and outside of theatre – most notably this the circumstances of his life in cultural isolation through- has included work with prisoners in the United Kingdom and out the communist years and as a means of much longed-for United States, as well as with a youth group, Nos do Morro, international artistic validation. There are of course crucial in a Rio de Janeiro favela. She has been instrumental in de- problems inherent to the monolithic, absolutist worldview veloping the company’s educational and community work that the non-arrival of postmodernism had facilitated, but if – indeed, Berry is often seen as the precursor of the RSC these problems are to be addressed in the spirit of liberal Education Department – and she has published four highly relativism, they must irst be allowed to be seen as problemspraised books on the relationship between voice, the text and from within. the actor. Her 2008 book From Word to Play is, unlike its pre- An interesting insight into the role of theatre in a monolithic decessors, aimed at directors rather than actors and it outlines context is to be gleaned courtesy of Silviu Purcarete, who in approaches to the text stemming from the same principles the same collection of interviews intimated: underlying her previous books, but emphasizing ways into „It’s paradoxical, but during the Communist era, theatre and the world of the play. theatre artists were ‘high’ caste. They belonged to some kind At the outset, she outlines her early experiences of working of aristocratic tribe in all East European countries. It was with three different directors at the RSC, Trevor Nunn, Terry felt that theatre was something extremely necessary and ex- Hands and John Barton, and how their individual styles in- tremely valued by people. [...] And now I don’t know why luenced her own work with the actors. With Nunn, there was people go to the theatre” (Purcarete in Delgado and Rebel- the challenge of helping the actors achieve naturalism and lato 2010: 101). intimacy within epic spaces; with Hands the epic was a -pre Nowhere is this sense of theatre aristocracy more present, rogative, but the issue was achieving precision together with perhaps, than in the seat of Konstantin Stanislavsky and the speed that he required; inally, with Barton, the structure 14 2/2014 of the text – ‘the speciics of rhythm, antithesis, metaphor those speeches’ (Ellis 2010: 122). In addition, she has lik- and word play’ (2008: 27) – was paramount: ened the actors to the singers in their respective necessity „actors would come to my small upstairs ofice to go over for technical training (Berry, Rodenburg and Linklater their speeches; having gone through the necessary voice 1997: 48). work in order to release their own private reaction to the lan- Despite the considerable signiicance of her work to actors guage, I would perhaps throw a handful of books on the loor and members of the theatre profession, Berry’s methodol- and get them to pick them up and put them in order on the ogy has received little attention within academia. Along- shelf while going through their part. A simple procedure but side her other two distinguished colleagues, voice teachers I soon realized how, by doing a simple task while speaking, Patsy Rodenburg and Kristin Linklater, Berry in fact came the actor was freed up and so allowed him or her to ind their up against some academic criticism. In 1996, Sarah Werner own response to the text, while still honouring the speech infamously attacked their work in a published extract from structures that Barton wanted” (2008: 27). her PhD on the grounds of its ‘anti-intellectual bias’, the Imbued with a deep love and appreciation of spoken lan- ‘assumption that Shakespeare’s characters are universal, guage, verse and poetic metaphor, and with a drive to liber- that their feelings are ahistorical and readily accessible to ate the actor from any fears or constraints, Berry’s work twentieth-century actors’, and the ‘ideological implications on the text, in my experiential understanding of it, appears of this way of seeing Shakespeare’ (1996: 252). all three to have two levels. There is the level of active listening teachers responded to this in vehement defence of their where she asks us to speak the text while beating out the practical work – Linklater pointing out that Werner was a iambic pentameter rhythm, listen out for the words that true ‘grandchild of Descartes’ and stating that ‘while I ad- do not it the meter and use them as clues for understand- mit to an anti-academic bias in my work, I refuse to allow ing what the focus of the text can be. This level is of an the academy to hold a monopoly on the intellect’ (Berry, analytical kind, but it allows for personal response. Then rodenburg and Linklater 1997: 52). there is an experiential level where she places us in a physi- The accusations levelled at Berry that she was upholding a cal situation which represents what it might be like for the conservative, male-dominated view of Shakespeare’s work speaker/character to be feeling the feelings and thinking by focusing on authorial intention rather than taking a criti- the thoughts being articulated by these lines. This is not cal approach to text were naturally a product of the post- a Stanislavskian reconstruction of a dramatic situation; modern – and more speciically Foucauldian – legacy on rather it is physical manifestation of the character’s men- the critical theory of the latter half of the twentieth century tal state, whereby we are in fact enacting the thought or too. However, Berry and her followers might ind relief in the feeling itself, rather than the character’s behaviour. An the evolving ield of cognitive science and its application in example includes: Ophelia moving in the space with all the Performance Studies, which has shifted the focus from the other workshop participants moving around her; she is try - issues of power and cultural politics towards neuro-scien- ing to establish contact with someone while speaking ‘O, tiic investigations of the processes of theatre-making and what a noble mind is here o’erthrown’, but everyone else reception. In her book Shakespeare’s Brain, Mary Thomas is instructed to turn away from her every time she reaches Crane has speculated whether the insights of cognitive sci- them. This is intended to – and often does – conjure up the ence and psychology remained neglected by cultural and feeling of utter despair and isolation in the speaker. A char- literary critics for such a long time due to the fact that ‘tra- acter’s mental indecision contained within a speech may be ditional theoretical models seem more relevant to studies explored by speaking the lines while moving between two of texts because they are themselves text-based’ (2001: chairs on each punctuation mark. A sense of inner turmoil 15). The application of cognitive science to the study of might be experienced by getting the speakers to jostle each performance allows for application of different epistemic other while speaking the text, ‘although they know this is methodologies which may be more inclusive of non-text- set up as an exercise, the actual act of jostling affects how based aspects of performance. Or, in the words of Bruce one speaks – it is irritating to be pushed, after all’ (2008: McConachie, ‘many of the current truth claims of theatre 58). a strategy for entering the ‘world of the play’, rather and performance scholarship [... will be rendered] vulner- than the character, may involve taking a section of dialogue able to irrelevance in the coming decades’ (2006: xii). In – in the case of Hamlet, for example, the opening scene is her own project, Crane proposes a new conception of au- suggested – asking the participants in the scene to play it thorship that ‘challenges the Foucauldian deconstruction of from the outer edges of the space. They whisper the text the author’ (2001: 3), and a literary theory based on cogni- across the space within which the rest of the group – ‘the tive science which offers ‘new ways to locate in texts signs audience’ – are positioned and instructed to mutter back the of their origin in a materially embodied mind/brain’ (2001: words that strike them as evocative of the scene’s super- 4). This methodology, which allows for the author and his natural atmosphere. (A similar workshop is possible with plays to ‘represent what it is like to conceive of oneself almost any other play, taking into account its speciic world as an embodied mind’ (2001: 4) and which takes into ac- and the atmospheric characteristics pertaining to it.) Berry count spatiality inherent in the author’s language, has the notes that this work and the ‘displacement strategies’ (such potential to validate Berry’s work and to render Werner’s as the one involving the ordering of books described above) criticisms futile. Crane does not dismiss the importance of are of course not concerned with the story of the play, but cultural context and ideology in shaping authorial process- with allowing the actor to ind a subliminal response to the es; however, in a manner reminiscent of Berry’s work, she shapes of the thought and feeling contained in the verbal bases her thinking on the premise that ‘language is shaped, text itself. or „motivated”, by its origins in the neural systems of a hu- There could be a potential analogy between text and music man body as they interact with other human bodies and an in Berry’s approach in that she believes that ‘meaning is environment’ (2001: 11). rhythm and rhythm is meaning’, and insists on working on In the Foreword to Berry’s irst book in 1973, Peter Brook the structure of speeches and ‘the music that goes through established that ‘her book points out with remarkable per- 15 2/2014 suasiveness [that] „technique” as such is myth, for there twenty-irst century a number of thinkers, including linguist is no such thing as correct voice’ and ‘[t]here is no right George Lakoff, psychologist Raymond Gibbs and cognitive way – there are only a million wrong ways’ (1973/1993: scientists/linguists Mark Turner and Gilles Fauconnier, have 3). This, as we have seen above, did not make the work proposed theories of human knowledge acquisition empha- immune from anti-authoritarian critique. Perhaps, after all, sizing ‘kinesthetic and perceptual interconnections between the RSC, like MHAT, could never help being seen as an the human body and its physical environments’ (Hart in Mc- institution upon which certain ideas of authority would be Conachie 2006: 37). Even though the work of the RSC Edu- projected? Perhaps they had, or do have, something in com- cation Department has not been hugely informed by theory, mon after all? it is clear that in its practical form, being rooted in Berry’s Having briely worked at the education Department of teaching and in the rehearsal room methodology, the RSC the RSC, under Michael Boyd in the mid-2000s, I would pedagogy paradigmatically belongs to the ‘cognitive turn’ like to highlight some less obvious ways in which the RSC (McConachie 2006). In addition, it has also inspired new managed to generate a sense of community in and around thinking in the area of pedagogical theory itself. Noting a itself in the early twenty-irst century. It is not unknown shift in the education and culture policy in England from the that Boyd himself trained in Moscow in the 1970s and that ‘pro-technical’/information-based to the ‘pro-social’/expe- this had a crucial inluence on his career and his artistic riential emphasis in learning during New Labour’s govern- sensibility. When in 2003 he inherited an economically and ment in the late 2000s, Jonothan morally destabilized RSC from Adrian Noble, Boyd was Neelands (2009) took inspiration from Boyd’s ensemble determined to return the company to its founding principle ethos and the RSC’s in-house pedagogy to propose a model of ‘ensemble’. His leadership style was based on inclusiv- of ensemble-based drama education. This would be a model ity, empathy and collegiality, and he passionately believed founded on: that ‘the ensemble way of working’, ultimately rooted in „the idea of the paedia of the participatory experience, of be- the idea of ‘the whole being greater than the sum of its ing together in drama and how children and young people are parts’, was to be applied to the whole company, artists and changed by that which is important, rather than the form of managers included. To what extent this approach seemed the drama work itself” (Neelands 2009: 181). to value Cicely Berry’s own legacy – both in terms of her Its effects would not remain only within the limits of the work with the actors and in terms of the education and com- school subject, but are envisaged as being able to shape the munity work of the company – could be seen in the fact students’ social actions ‘as a community beyond the drama that the Education Department was included in the Artistic class and also, possibly, beyond school’ (2009: 181). Planning meetings in 2003 (alongside a number of other Although the idea of the ensemble as a ‘bridging metaphor departments). Members of the Education Department, who between the social and the artistic’ (Neelands 2009: 182) were often former actors themselves, were embedded in can be seen to tap into the very nature of theatre as an art particular productions so that they could facilitate a direct form – particularly its function in Athenian democracy which transfer of rehearsal room methodologies and the kinaes- Neelands also brings into his analysis – this must be a very thetic approach to the text into the classroom. There were long way away from what Peter Hall could have envisaged ongoing training sessions within the company, and the Art- when in 1958, he met with the Stratford entrepreneur Fordam ist Development Programme – mostly tailored to the needs Flower in Moscow to discuss his project of an ensemble in of the acting companies – was routinely open to members Shakespeare’s home town. of the Voice and Education Departments. In addition there were lunchtime classes in yoga, Pilates and Feldenkrais open to all staff members. Actors and assistant directors Notes: were regularly involved in the Education Department activities and eventually they were also given an opportunity to *Adapted from Chapter One, Theatre-Making: Interplay Be- be accredited for their teaching work as part of a postgradu- tween Text and Performance in the 21st Century (2013, Pal- ate diploma taught jointly between the University of War- grave macmillan) by Duška radosavljević. wick and the RSC. The report on the company, entitled All 1 Some personal testimonies from Kent staff who visited Together: A Creative Approach to Organisational Change, MHAT are available on the project website: http://www.kent. notes that in conjunction with these developments, the ac.uk/arts/drama/moscow/index.html. Education Department ‘took on greater importance in the 2 See Allain, Paul (2012) Andrei Droznin’s Physical Actor rSC’s public proile’ (Hewison, Holden and Jones 2010: Training, Routledge Taylor & Francis DVD and Booklet. 70) – but crucially, it continued to derive its greatest sense 3 Bryant, Levi R. (2009) ‘Of Translation, Ontological Re- of achievement from bringing Shakespeare and the work alism, and Epistemological Anti-Realism’, Larval Subjects of the company closer to their audience, and particularly Blog, 18 November 2009, http://larvalsubjects. wordpress. to underprivileged children throughout the Midlands. This com/2009/11/18/of-translation-ontological-realism-and- level of democratization of theatre is rarely seen in those epistemological- anti-realism/. contexts where theatre people are perceived as ‘high caste’, 4 Freedman, John (2011) ‘Fifteen Productions to Remem- as the case might have been in communist Romania. ber 2001–2010’, The Moscow Times Blog, 16 January, http:// Kinaesthetic or experiential learning, based on Howard www.themoscowtimes.com/blogs/432775/post/15- produc- Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (1983), as well as tions-to-remember-2001-2010/433227.html. the in-house emphasis on mind-body connection, were the 5 This was shared in a personal conversation, off-camera, key principles underpinning the pedagogical approach of the rather than in the formal interview. RSC Education Department, and there were two strands of 6 Although Butusov does not refer directly to Esslin, it is work on offer: workshops for students and workshops for worth noting that Esslin’s work The Theatre of the Absurd teachers; with the packages changing in relation to each pro- (1961) as well as Jan Kott’s Shakespeare Our Contemporary duction. F. Elizabeth Hart notes that since the start of the (1962/1964) both offer a similar perspective. 16 2/2014

7 mjs, Njl (2007) ‘Director Yury Butusov’s Shakespeare Gardner, Howard (1983) Frames of Mind: The Theory of Frenzy’, MHAT School website, http://mhatschool.theatre. Multiple Intelligences, (New York: Basic Books). ru/en/ international/mosjournal2007/chapter2/1/. Hartley, andrew James (2005) The Shakespearean Dramaturg: A Theoretical and Practical Guide, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan). Bibliography: Hewison, robert; Holden John; Jones, Samuel (2010) All Together: A Creative Approach to Organisational Change, Berry, Cicely (2008) From Word to Play: a handbook for (London: Demos). directors, (London: Oberon Books). McConachie, Bruce and Hart, F. Elizabeth (2006) Perfor- Berry, Cicely; rodenburg, Patsy and Linklater, Kristin (1997) mance and Cognition: Theatre Studies and the Cognitive ‘Shakespeare, Feminism and Voice: responses to Sarah Turn, (London and New York: Routledge). Werner, New Theatre Quarterly, 13: 49, 1997, pp. 48-52. Neelands, Jonothan (2009) ‘Acting together: ensemble as a Bryant, Levi R. (2011) The Democracy of Objects, (Ann democratic process in art and life’, RiDE: The Journal of Ap- Arbor: Open Humanities Press). plied Theatre and Performance, Vol. 14, No. 2, May 2009, Buden, Boris (2010) ‘What to do with the question “What pp. 173-189. will the Balkans look like in 2020?”’ http://www.wus-austria. Pavis, Patrice (1992) Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture, org/iles/docs/Boris%20Buden%20Text%20BCC%202010_ (London and New York: Routledge). edited.pdf Pavis, Patrice (2012) The Contemporary Mise-en-Scene, Crane, Mary Thomas (2001) Shakespeare’s Brain: Reading manuscript. with Cognitive Theory, (Princeton: Princeton University Pitches, Jonathan (2006) Science and the Stanislavsky Tradi- Press). tion of Acting, (London and New York: Routledge). Delgado, Maria and Rebellato, Dan eds (2010) Contempo- radosavljević, Duška (2013) The Contemporary ensemble: rary European Theatre Directors, (London and New York: Interviews with Theatre-Makers, (London and New York: Routledge). Routledge). Fischer-Lichte, Erika (2001)’Reversing the hierarchy be- Worthen, W.B. (1997) Shakespeare and the Authority of Per- tween text and performance’, European Review, Vol. 9, No. formance, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 3, pp. 277-291. Worthen, W.B. (2011) ‘Intoxicating Rhythms: Or, Shake- Fischer-Lichte, Erika (2008) The Transformative Power of speare, Literary Drama, and Performance (Studies)’, Performance: A new aesthetics, (London and New York: Shakespeare Quarterly, Volume 62, Number 3, Fall 2011, Routledge). 309-339.

17 2/2014 SummarIeS

SHAKESPEARE IN BULGARIAN (c.1590-91) as a metatheatrical game THEATRE SPACE TODAY „ ” with the audience. To contextualise Kamelia Nikolova the drama’s insciption of the observer, it traces the dynamics of pre-Shake- The paper analyzes the presence of spearean exchanges with the specta- Shakespeare in Bulgarian theatre land- tors - from mystery plays (Secunda scape today through the focus of the - Pastorum) through moralities (Man- celebration of the 450th anniversary of - kind) to humanist interludes (Fulgens his birth. among the many different „ - and Lucrece). It also makes references activities it discusses two main events : to elizabethan theatrical conventions, – the large number of Shakespearian 21 ” conditions of presentation, including productions which appeared in the last (Duška radosavljević. Theatre-making: audience status and theatre design, as years on Bulgarian stages and the best Interplay Between Text and Performance well as transactions with the audience performances on Shakespeare’s plays in the 21st Century (2013, Palgrave in the plays of Shakespeare’s contem- from uK made since 2009 which are macmillan). - poraries. broadcasted in Bulgaria by satellite as - The paper argues that the Induction part of London National Theatre glob- to Shakespeare’s play stages the audi- al programme NT Live. - - ence’s gradual involvement in the the- Between 2010 and 2014 in Bulgaria . atrical iction. as a Sidneyan golden are staged a significant number of - world is organised around him, the Shakespeare’s plays. Depending on drunken tinker Christopher Sly, our its interpretive strategy, they can be double upon the stage, watching a the- divided into three groups. The first atrical performance, is tricked into be- group includes performances cre- - lieving himself to be „a lord, and noth- ated in the aesthetics of theatre of the „”, ing but a lord”. Sly’s complete surren- new realism - „Hamlet“, directed by , der to theatrical illusionism, however, Yavor Gurdev, National Theatre and . results in his disappearance from the „Love’s Labour’s Lost „ directed by - Shakespearean text. Chris Sharkov, Theatre „Sofia”. The , Within the play proper, the gross ic- second group combines productions : ) - tions of the embedded Taming violently „as You Like It „ directed by Krasimir school the noisy, unruly Catherine into Spassov, Theatre „Bulgarian army „ ) - obedience. Its poetics depends upon the and „richard III” directed by Plamen tamer Petruchio’s oscillation between markov, Varna Drama theatre, which - illusion-making and illusion-breaking. offer a personalized classical inter- . as exempliied by the ending, this self- pretation of Shakespeare’s drama. interrupting illusionism functions as a The third group unites three very dif- - ine counterpoint to the theatrics of the ferent shows belonging to theatre of ( Induction, and a metatheatrical reply images - „Winter’s Tale” directed by , to the Puritan attacks against the early margarita mladenova and „Back to ) modern stage. Wittenberg „ directed by Ivan Dob- . chev in Teatre laboratory “Sfumato” , and „romeo and Juliet” directed by - STAGES TO ACHIEVE A SHAKE- Petrinel Gotchev, Gabrovo Drama SPEAREAN CHARACTER theatre. - Sava Dragunchev The paper also discusses British Shakespearian performances from „”, - This research points out the system NT Live programme „Comedy of er- that would interpret the prerequisites rors”, „Timon of athens”, „Othello”, of theatre creating today, of the educa- „macbeth” and „Coriolanus”. It un- „”, - tional, and the speciically individual derlines their high artistic quality and , . characteristics as a starting ground for innovative contemporary interpreta- building the basic benchmarks along tion. In conclusion, the study high- the actor’s training – the synthesised lights the importance of creative dia- THE TAMING OF THE AUDIENCE vocal and speech skills, the move- logue between Bulgarian and British Evgenia Pancheva ment, analytical- and critical-thinking theatre productions on Shakespeare related competence, so that he or she in Bulgaria in the years around his The paper discusses Shakespeare‘s ear- can work freely in a translation-bound anniversary. ly comedy of The Taming of the Shrew environment such as Bulgaria with a

62 2/2014

Shakespearean text, abundant in artis - tive narrative codes, compresses into cinema audience, Zefirelli developed tic devices offering some basic direc- a well-larded and effective story what a style of new realism, which affected tions for the interpretation of the role. feature ilm would draw out to a great the principles of cinema adaptations for The rhythm of the language, the sound length. animation ilm atones for the the next decades. models and the actor’s wilful abiding lack of a consistent narration using its The core of the article offers an elabo- by them, or on the contrary – wilful own visual, synthetic or fantastic imag- rate analysis of Zefirelli ‘s ilm „ro- violation, bring plenty of interpretative es that refer perception to an expanded meo and Juliet” (1968), a case-study of information. connotative ield based on prior knowl- this remarkable model of crossover ilm. The practical base for teaching Shake - edge of the original texts. The language The review is based on examination of speare today (to either students, or pro - of animated ilm creates devices of its the principal elements of the movie, fessional actors) brings out the general - own for a lash-like representation of which distinguish it from the then es- ly recognised theatre categories, which the literary and dramatic symbolism tablished tradition of Shakespearian need, however, refocusing in terms and metaphoric imagery. adaptations. The director demonstrates of this author – status, power, rhythm The main accent in the article is on the a skilled implementation of the entire (including rhythm of the heart), open- issues of adaptation without dialogues, visual potential of cinema, operating ness of the body, physical use of space, on replacement of the original text by with different shots, spectacular angles, diction, stress, etc., so that it becomes voice-over commentaries and non-mi- dramatic montage techniques, visuali- possible to adequately use blank verse, metic representations of Shakespear- zation of metaphors, authentic period rhyme, rhythm, verse structure, meter ean characters through drawings, pup- details etc. In its conclusion, the paper change, metrics, scansion, pause, cae- pets or brushstrokes… unconvincing underlines the correlation between this sura, breath, end of sentence within a screen animated deaths as well as the new developed style of literary adapta- line, sharing lines between characters, radical reshaping of the tragedy into … tion and the outstanding cultural recep- transition from verse to prose and vice a comedy are also addressed. tion of the ilm. versa, monosyllabic vocabulary, ig- The articles reviews the movies A Mid- ures of speech (alliterations, assonanc- summer Night’s Dream (Jiri Trnka, es, onomatopoeia, antitheses, paradox- 1959), The Tempest (George Dunning, SHREWISH LABOURS OF es, contradictions, similes, hyperbolas, uninished), Bottom’s Dream (John THE UNTAMED BULGARIAN hendiadyses, epiphoras, anaphoras, Canemaker, 1984), We Called them THEATRE POSTERS and above all – metaphors). By know- Montagues and Capulets (Donyo Do- Nenko Atanasov ing, recognising and embodying the nev, 1985), BBC series of 12 animat- right content of these devices the ac- ed adaptations by russian directors Bulgarian theatre took interest in tor, being form responsible, can build a (1992–1994), Lion King (roger allers, Shakespeare’s plays as early as the irst complicated palette of images and can rob minkoff, 1994) among others. years following the Liberation of this create author-dictated emotions and country from the Ottomans thus incor - actions in harmony with the rest of his porating Bulgarian cultural arena in the colleagues on stage and in consonance FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI‘S european one. with the director’s, the designer’s, the „Romeo and Juliet” as a The earliest examples of theatre post - movement and vocal aspect of the per- CROSSOVER FILM MODEL ers in Bulgaria––invitations and pro - - formance. In other words – the techni- Ingeborg Bratoeva-Daraktchieva grammes of the late nineteenth cen cal Shakespeare would give way to the tury––had just an illustrative function live Shakespeare. This paper examines Franco Zefire- and their creative value boiled down to the aesthetics of the type. These By cultivating taste and sense of pro- lli’s adaptation of „romeo and Juliet” speciics, variously modiied, lived portion that would allow for the sen- (1968) from two perspectives: from the on until the early 1960s when the irst sitivity and for the mind to measure viewpoint of the crossover ilm devel- Shakespearean poster in Bulgaria was the dose and the aesthetic validity of opment in the late 1960’s, and through made. asen Stareishinski, an academi - the environment on stage, and in life, the lens of the general discussion about cally trained painter, pioneered theatre the modern actor, instead of standing literary adaptations on screen. The poster here being among the irst to up in front of the colossus, can step on introduction of the text exposes this venture out into Shakespeare’s uni - Shakespeare’s shoulders, armed with debates, relating to crossover ilm as verse. his voice, expression and life – Vox, a cultural form, from Thomas elsaess- In the 1970s and the 1980s, each of Vultus, Vita – or his mind, heart and er’s labeling it as a „form of cinematic the active poster artists made works soul! prostitution”, towards a more bal- after Shakespeare’s emblematic trag- anced view to its capacity of making edies and comedies with Dimiter Ta - the important transition from minority sev, Ludmil Chekhlarov, Bozhidar SHAKESPEARE IN AN to mainstream ilm-audiences. a short Yonov, Ognian Funev, Gancho Ganev, ANIMATED STIPPLED LINE review of the experiments of Franco Dimiter Traichev, Galina Gencheva, Nadezhda Marinchevska Zefirelli with Shakespearian texts (on Georgi Zumbulev, etc., excelling in stage and on screen) underlines the this respect. The article problematizes the specif- unique contribution of the Italian di- an analysis of the signiicant moments ics of animated adaptations of Shake- rector to the formation of a modern ap- of the history of Shakespearean post - speare’s plays. Screen adaptations proach to literary adaptations. adapt- ers in Bulgaria shows its evolutional would necessarily abridge the plays. ing time-honored literary texts to the importance to the public mindsets on animation, disregarding the descrip- attitudes of a mass-media-dominated theatre posters as such.

63 SHAKESPEARE FOREVER! outline the merits of Sir Lawrence Ol- and John madden. Conclusions are ADAPTATION AS RE- ivier for the evolution of acting tech- made that Shakespeare is no longer CONTEXTUALIZATION IN niques and ilm art. The text also high- the general code. rather, he is kind of BRITISH CINEMA OF THE 90S lights the contribution of Harold Pinter literary drug that encourages the au- OF THE 20TH CENTURY and Tom Stoppard for the update of thors to express their hidden “selves”. Mariana Lazarova ilm form and content through „the de- Shakespeare just like the Bible, he be- dramatization” of theater performance longs to everyone and at the same time The object of the research focuses on and emancipation of visual expression evokes very personal, even intimate cinematographic traditions and their in line with the principles of the alter- interpretations. transformations in the context of the nativeness and intertextuality of post- speciic conjuncture of the 90s’, track- modern art. ing the impact of these processes on the re-contextualization and re-temporal- poetics of ilm adaptations of Shake- isation, the use of meta-narrative and speare’s plays. Two cinematic tradi- meta theater, the principle of language tions are traced: tradition of ontologi- games and the cultural paradigm of cal cinema and dramatic and theatrical ‚remix‘ culture are regarded as major tradition as per formative art and kind dramatic adaptation techniques in the of revival of the Decadence. Theoret- ilms of Peter Greenaway, Derek Jar- ical-historical approach is applied to man, Oliver Parker, Kenneth Branagh

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